Guide: Promotional Strategies for Cyber Monday

As every e-marketer is aware. Cyber Monday is perhaps the most anticipated Monday of the year. It’s the online version of Black Friday, where retailers offer big discounts for their customers online. According to Business Insider, “Cyber Monday is the biggest shopping day of the year, surpassing Black Friday in terms of revenue and sales.”

It’s been reported that promotions launched ahead of time have influenced consumer behavior into holiday shopping earlier. Last year, Amazon started holiday promotions a week before Black Friday.

As exciting as this time of year is, there’s mounting pressure on brands to get it right. This guide includes quick tips and insights to help you better prepare for holiday promotions this year.

Make your own Cyber Monday/Black Friday Landing Page:

Target has a Cyber Monday page displaying suggestions for gift ideas, top deals, items on clearance and a weekly ad:

Having a dedicated landing page with the name of the holiday promotion makes it easier for customers to find what they’re looking for faster.

Create a Gift Guide:

Mignon Faget has a beautiful gift guide loaded with great holiday gift ideas for the home and special gifts for loved ones.

Gift guides are an excellent promotional strategy.

In fact, “Fifty-four percent of holiday shoppers use recommendations from retailers to purchase gifts.”

Consumers are often overwhelmed by an abundance of choice. By offering them guidance on unique and special gifts they could give their loved ones, it empowers them to make better purchasing decisions.

Create a Holiday Lookbook or Catalog:

Holiday catalogs are a smart way for brands to highlight various products in a holiday selection. The use of rich visuals including beautiful product photography, enhances the overall shopping experience for the consumer. It feels like a more explorative journey as users get to navigate through different outfits, accessories, and individual items. Holiday catalogs help brands build stronger connections with their shoppers, by offering hand-picked items as recommendations.

Product and Outfit Bundling:

Bundling various products together is extremely effective. They’re an opportunity for brands to increase average order values. Give customers inspiration and guidance for different outfit or gift ideas. “One estimate from McKinsey suggests that 35% of all Amazon purchases come from recommendations (at least some of which qualify as “bundles”) additionally, according to Forrester, around 60% of recommendations have a success rate.”

Creative Email Promotions:

Dillard’s offered ‘300 amazing gift ideas’ to inspire their customers towards special gifts. By notifying customers about various gift guides, it helps consumers learn about your brand’s recommendations in advance as they prepare for holiday shopping.

Create Gift Guides by Category:

Amazon has created gift guides by specific shopping categories and has even introduced celebrity-created shopping lists. With a multitude of products to sift through, category gift guides help organize the shopping journey for your customers in a more interactive, and thoughtful way.

Think Mobile-First

According to Adobe Analytics Mobile traffic accounted for 47% and 36% of sales. Adobe stated that Cyber Monday sales reached $2.2 billion, up from $1.4 billion a year earlier. The U.S. reached $2 billion in online sales from phones for the first time ever.

These growing mobile traffic statistics are unsurprising. In an always-on world, where time is of the essence brands need to have a successful mobile strategy. In an omnichannel world, it is paramount to have all of your campaigns optimized for mobile users.

As an example, take Eddie Bauer’s come out and play campaign, it has an intuitive ’tap to view more’ interface where mobile users can interact with products to see more information from a quick view. Other solutions offer opening new tabs, but this is a bit troublesome on mobile as it encourages the mobile user to leave the experience and not explore more products.

The holidays are an exciting time for brands to launch holiday promotions and for consumers to build their holiday shopping wishlists. Gift guides bridge the gap between brands and consumers by simplifying the gift shopping process for consumers. They are creative displays of products that inspire purchases and evoke festive holiday spirits while shopping. With the right shoppable content, you can build several holiday gift guides for your shoppers faster without any coding.

Contact Syndeca today to learn how to promote your holiday campaigns faster and without the need to code.